How to print two-sided on a page with Mac

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We already know why you came to our guide today. Want to know how to print two-sided with Mac, right? In the next lines we will explain how to do this if you need to print a sheet with the newly purchased printer and do not know the steps to follow.

Content index

Preliminary operations

Before entering into our new guide today, you need to make sure that the printer has been installed correctly and recognized by your Mac. First, connect the device to one of the PC’s USB ports. At this point, macOS will automatically recognize the printer and automatically download the appropriate drivers from the Internet.

If you have a device that can connect to the Internet via Ethernet or Wi-Fi, you must follow a very specific procedure that we propose below:

  • Click on the Apple logo located at the top left of the desktop and choose System Preferences from the menu that appears.
  • At this point, click on Printers and scanners and press on the + that you find in the left sidebar.
  • Now, press the IP tab and type the local IP address of the printer or its host name in the Address box. If you do not know how to find it, then we suggest you read our guide on how to find the printer IP address.
  • In the next step, select the AirPrint protocol from the drop-down menu and click Add to add the printer to macOS correctly.

How to print two-sided with Mac: standard procedure

After successfully adding the device to your computer, we can now finally see how to print a document. Before revealing the procedure to be carried out, however, you must be sure that your printer supports the possibility of double-sided printing.

You can find this information on the product page on the official website of the manufacturer (eg HP, Samsung, Canon, Brother, Epson, Xerox and so on) or in the user manual supplied with the product.

Without this necessary clarification, we see the steps to follow to start the process:

  • Open the document you want to print both the front and the back using any software (eg Apple Preview).
  • At this point, find the Print command that is usually found in the File menu that you find in the top menu bar.
  • In the window that opens, select the printer you wish to use from the appropriate drop-down menu.
  • Now, indicate the number of copies to print and set other desired options.
  • To start the two-sided printing process, check the appropriate option that is in correspondence with Copies.
  • If you also want to change the layout of the print, then click on the Show details button located at the bottom left. For example, you can choose to have the binding on the short side or the long side of the paper by using the Shortcut Binding and Wide Cut Binding options that you find on Front-Back.
  • Complete the procedure by clicking on the Print button located at the bottom right.

How to print two-sided on Mac: alternative procedure

If you have a printer not really of the latest generation without the ability to print the front and back of a document, do not worry because you can use an alternative method to do so. The only thing to accept is that it will take a little more time to do the operation.

Let’s see the steps to follow:

  • Open the document with the default software and click on Print from the File menu at the top left.
  • Now, set the number of copies to 1 and then select All from the Pages box and the Paper handling option instead of Layout.
  • In the next step, press the drop-down menu next to Pages to be printed and choose Only odd to print only the odd pages of the document (eg 1, 3 and 5).
  • Once this is done, click on the Print button to print the odd pages and, once completed, turn over the newly printed sheets and insert them back into the printer.
  • At this point, repeat the same operation but this time select the Only Even option instead of Only odd to print only the even pages and press to Print to start the print job.

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